Tag Archives: good

The Problem of Evil

Post Author:  Darrell

One common atheist argument against Christianity is known as The Problem of Evil. It can be stated as follows.

1)  God is said to be omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2)  If God is omnipotent, He has the power to defeat evil.
3)  If God is omniscient, He knows when and where evil exists.
4)  If God is morally perfect, He wants to destroy evil.
5)  Yet evil exists.
6)  Therefore, God does not exist.

There are several responses open to the classical theist in response to this objection. I am fond of one of Dr. Norman Geisler’s responses.  He says the atheist has overlooked an important factor, and as a result, the argument can be restated with a different conclusion.

1)  God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2)  Being omnipotent, He has the power to defeat evil.
3)  Being omniscient, He knows when and where evil exists.
4)  Being morally perfect, He wants to defeat evil.
5)  “Therefore, evil will yet be defeated. It is a fact that an all-good, all-powerful God assures us that this will happen. In short, since God is both all-good and all-powerful, evil will be defeated” (Geisler, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 161).

I discovered another response to this argument in a recent Seminary class of mine.  It states that the atheist’s fourth premise is faulty as God is not morally perfect.  In fact, to say that God is morally perfect is to hold that there is a principle to which God must adhere, i.e., there is something which transcends God.  However, if there is a principle which transcends God, then God cannot truly be said to be God.  Instead, the principle to which God is held is God. 

Traditional Christianity teaches that God transcends all, i.e., there is nothing which is greater than Him.  He created all things, and there is nothing that is outside of His power or dominion.  Since God is the greatest of all, there is nothing by which He can be measured.  As a result, God cannot be said to be morally perfect; instead He is Good.  More appropriately, He is Good Itself.  God does not have a standard to live up to because He is The Standard by which all else is judged.  Consequently, the atheist’s argument has a faulty premise, makes incorrect assumptions about God, and is inappropriate and inapplicable to God.

Darrell

Can Evil Exist Without God?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Many skeptics of Christianity claim that the existence of evil in the world proves that a good God cannot exist.  I believe this viewpoint is exactly backwards.

If you truly believe that there is evil in the world, then you must believe that there is good in the world as well.  We can’t know what is wrong unless we know what is right.  We can’t know a crooked line unless we know a straight line.  We can’t know injustice unless we know justice.

But if there is real good and real evil in the world, then there must be an ultimate standard, a measuring stick by which to judge goodness and badness.  This measuring stick must be perfect, so that all moral activity can be compared to it, just like determining the straightness of any line requires a perfectly straight line by which to compare.

Here is the argument summarized in short from:

  1. evil implies good
  2. good implies a perfect standard by which to define it

Now, if you believe that there exists real, objective evil in the world – evil that any person from any place or time would agree is really evil – then you are stuck with admitting that there must be a perfect standard of goodness also in existence, a moral law.

Where does this perfect standard of goodness come from?  The Christian answer is that this standard originates in the nature of God.  God’s own nature is the perfect standard of good, and God has always existed as the first cause of everything.

If you’re a person who wants to escape this answer, you can claim that this moral law just sort of exists, like a floating “cloud” of goodness that just permeates the universe.  But the Christian can ask: “Where did this floating ‘cloud’ of goodness come from?”

You could say that the objective moral law, the perfect standard of goodness, comes from blind, purposeless, natural processes (the standard atheist account of everything that exists).  The Christian can ask: “Why should anyone feel obliged to follow and obey a perfect moral standard that comes from atoms randomly banging together over billions of years?”

I don’t think there is a good answer to that question.  The person who wants to affirm the existence of evil while denying the existence of God finds himself caught in a deep hole of irrationality.  He asks us to obey moral laws that come from rocks.

Some atheists, like Nietzsche, saw where this hole was leading and bailed out quickly.  They affirmed that there is no such thing as real moral evil in the world.  What we think is evil is really just our personal preferences.  You like to kill people and I don’t.  I like red and you like blue.

The consistent person who wants to affirm the existence of evil really must affirm the existence of a personal moral lawgiver – God.  If you don’t think God exists, then you should stop complaining about all the evil in the world.  You’re not making any sense.